The present invention relates generally to an implement used for playing diamond sport and, more particularly, to a bat with interchangeable handles and barrels.
It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that in the diamond sports, high performance bats are desired. It will further be appreciated that high performance bats also come at a considerable price. It will also be appreciated that the best bat for a particular person depends upon the weight of the bat, the length of the bat, how the weight is distributed, the material from which the bat is made, whether it is a single wall or shell bat, and other factors. Further, the best bat for an individual at bat varies based upon the type of ball used, the desired optimal result of the bat, the temperature, and other factors. This causes an individual player to own many bats and teams to own many more bats. Different softball associations require bats to meet different performance standards. Further, players like to use one bat for batting practice and another bat for game situations.
Further, it should be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art that different parts of a bat wear out for different reasons and at different times. For example, the barrel or ball striking portion of the bat tends to deflect when contacting the ball. Over time, this repeated deflection creates deformations. These deformations cause failure. As a result, the barrel on a bat may fail leaving the handle functional. To this end there have certain attempts to provide separate handle and barrels. Unfortunately, these separatable bats adversely effect the performance of the bat.
US Patent Application Publication No. US 2003/0069095 filed Apr. 10, 2003 disclosed a handle threadibly attached to a taper section and threadibly attached to a barrel section. Unfortunately, this direct threadible attachment creates many issues. Initially, the threaded portions will be the weakest sections of the fixed beam resulting in failure at the threaded portions. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,214; U.S. Pat. No. 6,511,392; U.S. Pat. No. 6,432,006; U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,438; U.S. Pat. No. 4,907,800; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,816 disclose pieces that are threadibly attached together or attached with very short threaded dowels or bolts. Other inventions such as those disclosed in Pub. No. US2003/0144089 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,935 use an internally threaded spine to hold the pieces together or to adjust the positions of the various pieces. U.S. Pat. No. 3,877,698 uses an internal dowel with grooves. In each of these cited patents and published applications, the inventor uses internal threading. This is difficult to achieve and adds much cost to the product. Further, the combined threads are likely to wear our over time. More importantly, none of these configurations appear to be useable in connection with a bat having a shell.
What is needed then is a bat with interchangeable handle and barrel. This needed bat allows the user to rapidly change handles, tapers, and barrels. This needed bat must allow the user to insert an exterior shell if necessary. This needed bat must allow the user to change the components of the bat to use varying materials, weights, sizes, and grip. This needed bat must provide barrels capable of use in connection with different governing bodies having different standards. This needed bat must be capable of use in connection with different bats for different purposes such as batting practice and game situations. This bat is presently lacking in the prior art.